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‘Obama Says The War Is Over. So Why Can’t I Leave Gitmo?’

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  • ‘Obama Says The War Is Over. So Why Can’t I Leave Gitmo?’

    Lawyers for a longtime detainee is trying out a new defense. If it works, he and a bunch of his fellow Gitmo prisoners could go free.
    An accused Taliban fighter held for more than 13 years in Guantanamo Bay is demanding his release, saying that since President Obama has declared the war in Afghanistan is over, there are no longer any legal grounds to hold him.

    It’s believed to be the first time a Guantanamo detainee has argued that the government’s authority to detain him evaporated with end of military operations against the Taliban, which began in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks. But when U.S. attorneys respond, they could argue that, in fact, hostilities haven’t come to a conclusion, and there are still grounds to hold the man. That could put them the strange position of undercutting the president, and arguing that just because the commander-in-chief says the war is over doesn’t necessarily make it so.

    “If they say that, that is the practical effect of what they’d be saying,” Brian Foster, one of the attorneys for the detainee, Mukhtar al Warafi, told The Daily Beast.

    Lawyers for Al Warafi, who was has effectively spent his entire adult life in jail, filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last month to grant a writ of habeas corpus, which would require the government to demonstrate why it is holding Al Warafi. The motion pointed to Obama’s public statements about the war, including his State of the Union Address, when he declared that “our combat mission in Afghanistan is over.”
    Continues
    Perfectly reasonable argument unless the US Govt. chooses to say it can hold anyone it likes for however long it likes.
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

  • #2
    Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
    Continues
    Perfectly reasonable argument unless the US Govt. chooses to say it can hold anyone it likes for however long it likes.
    Duhh! Gitmo is outside US legislative jurisdictions but inside a military command post.
    Chimo

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